Changes

The shutdowns were announced in a June 9, 2011 press release in which AEP blamed the Environmental Protection Agency for the plant closures and said layoffs of 600 workers would result. <ref>Laurence Hammack, [http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/breaking/wb/289284/ "AEP announces plan to close coal-burning Giles County power plant"] Roanoke Times, June 9, 2011. </ref> The announcement set off a storm of controversy. The Wall Street Journal called it a result of "EPA's War on Jobs" and said: "The real goal of the EPA's rule is to shut down fossil fuel electric power in the name of climate change. The consensus estimate in the private sector is that the utility rule and eight others on the EPA docket will force the retirement of 60 out of the country's current 340 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity." <ref>[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703818204576206662079202844.html "EPA's War on Coal"] Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2011. </ref> The New York Times took a different view: "This is a deceptive and particularly cynical claim... These units are, on average, 55 years old. Some are running at only 5 percent of capacity. Many had long been slated for retirement, in part to comply with a 2007 settlement with the George W. Bush administration in which the company agreed to settle violations of the Clean Air Act by spending $4.7 billion to retire or retrofit aging units." <ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/opinion/20mon1.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=American%20Electric%20Power%20&st=cse/ "AEP protests too much"] New York Times, June 20, 2011.</ref>

===American Electric Power's plant closures to impact [[Powder River Basin]] coal production===